#also i imagine sands being in some sort of manipulated mindset most of the time

[ald3r-wolfcak3]

Starshine rewrite, but oh no, Starshine missing;

Lisa get a phone call middle of the night. It's Alex. As she picks up, the other girl almost screaming, Starshine went missing. Lisa running to the stables, where she meet not only with Alex but with Anne also and Mr. Herman.

They find a message on Starshine's stall. It's an adress for an abandoned Dark Core yard. Mr. Herman drive the girls to the yard. Thanks to Alex's experience to breaking into guarded placies the girls can enter the place. But as they go deeper and deeper, they have to split up, since the place way to big to search it. Of course Lisa is the one who find Starshine insode one of the buildings. The horse inside a huge cage, which protecred by a code-lock. She tries to break the code, she really tries, but she can't. She extreamly stressed out, she shaking and crying and Starshine tries to calm her down, talking to her and saying everything will be alright she lost it. She collapses to the ground and non-stop crying. She can't do anything. She lost everyone she loves and care about, she not strong enought, not talented and fuck up everything. And then, someone touchies her shoulder. It's Mr. Sands. Why is he here? The man talking, she knows the man talking but can't understand. Then, the lock open up.

"Help him" the man says as he slowly turn around and walks away "And then go...It's not the right time yet...soulrider"

Lisa enters the cage and as before at the stable, she put her hands from of her. The pink star shows up and she slowly closes her eyes. She sees a memory from her childhood. It's her mom and dad. The three of them went to riding to for a picnic. When she pens her eyes Starshine standing fron of her. She hop on his back and they left the building. Starshine is healthy and strong and even thou she riding bareback she doesn't affraid of falling down. But as they left she hear a horse behind her. It's a pure black horse, a fresian with falming hoofs. The rider wearing black cloths with a red cape, it's covering up their face. Starshine run into the woods, Lisa asking him what's happening Starshine answears;

"It's them! It's them! I don't want to die yet!"

The woods are dense and gladly they able to espace the unknown rider behind their back. As they slow down they see rune stones. It's like a meadown but with stone Lisa come down and check the stone under her feet.

It has four simple picture. Each has a human and a horse with four different symbol. One of the symbol is a star, the same star she saw when she healed Starshine.

"It's them" Starshine says "The four guardian of this island. The four champion of Aideen"

"Who is Aideen?" She asks.

"The godness who helped to cage up the monster from beyond the starts. The one who made sure man and horses to be able to bond"

"So who are the guardians"

"It's you" and Lisa sure Starshine is smiling at her "A soulrider who ride under the circle of star. Heal the injured and free the oppressed"

"And you? Who are you?"

"I am you" Starshine says "And you are me. You and I are the same soul. I am protecting you and you are protecting me. We are the embodiment of Aideen's gift. The first champion of her..."

[phthalology]

yooo, the ultimate rare-pair Aloy/Sylens for the ask thing!!

002 | Send me a ship and I will tell you: 

When I started shipping them: Right around “mutual self interest” and/or “new science of understanding,” because egad am I here for ships who are bound together by inconvenient pacts and/or being the only people in the world who experienced a certain thing. I suppose that description could apply to many combinations of characters, but HZD emphasized it with the main plot being about secrets only Aloy and Sylens ever saw. They just check a lot of boxes that work for me. 

My thoughts: This is not about the ship per se, but … I keep thinking about what a good look it would be for Aloy to cut her hair. I know, it’s part of her deal, but it’s a quick way to switch her look from “appropriation / using braids and beads as shorthand” and “how is your hair that pretty in the wilderness” to “Mad Max.” 

What makes me happy about them: They are (were?) a pairing I needed at the time, a sort of emotional IV of resilience and the idea that sometimes the world isn’t over when it seems like the world is over. It’s no coincidence that HZD resonates with people in a world where the news seems to uncover one world-ending scenario after another. It’s nice to see a story where a person can find a life and a romance despite having lived through their own sort of end of the world. 

I also think video games have a particular ability to do that; in the YA novel prologue portion of the game I was attached to Aloy, but it was only after her near-death that attachment was solidified because the emotional height really pinned me to her perspective. 

To me, Sylens is the person who understands her the best. And despite his best efforts, she also quickly understands him: she’s also a loner, she’s also separate from her own family, she also grabs ideas hard and won’t let go. I don’t think he’s a mystery to her. He’s a challenge, not in that he doesn’t love her but in that his love fights with many other aspects of his nature, and that keeps the ship interesting. 

(One thing I’ve always thought but never really said, for the record: I generally picture my protagonists in fic as closer to my own age than what they’re presented at in the game. I’m older than Aloy, so I don’t really find it interesting to dig into her mindset as a late teen, even though I think it’s a sign of a good voice that she was written as young in parts of the game. That’s not an aspect I choose to emphasize.)  

What makes me sad about them: A lot of the things that could potentially make one sad about them are things that actually reassure me: they’re probably never going to stay together in one place for long, and they’re probably not going to end up on the same side of the ultimate battle. That’s fine. In fact, it’s a nice guarantee that the dynamic I liked in the game in the first place will continue. (Psychoanalyze away!)  If the game managed to convince me that he would choose Aloy (or her connection to GAIA) over his aspirations of restoring APOLLO or whatever it is he and HADES are up to, I’d probably be happy. But I do think …

The scene where he leaves her in the mountain is just so weighty; she clearly had a lot of emotion riding on the idea of meeting him in person. (Whether or not it was romantic or not – I clearly can’t fully get on board with but also find it very convincing and moving that she might see him as a parental figure at this point, one more person leaving her to fulfill some grand destiny they won’t explain. Even Rost was a bit cryptic at their last real conversation.)  

“Where will you go?” she asks, as if she thinks he would tell her, as if she’s reaching out to find one more point on the map that might just maybe be a home to replace the precarious one she lost for good when Rost died.  

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: Most of these apply to my ships in general; it’s just particularly notable how they reliably crop up in a ship with so few fics. I don’t like “woobifying” villains, and Sylens’ redemption is not in any way relevant to the ship for me. On the other hand, I don’t want Aloy to be portrayed as emotionless or manipulative; she isn’t savvy about relationships and I don’t like to think of her as insincere. She is savvy about trust, but … it’s hard to describe the difference. Basically, I want them to be unique, not sanded down to a template of a love/hate couple. 

Things I look for in fanfic: There are definitely not enough fics for me to be picky. I have literally read everything on AO3. It doesn’t take long. 

My wishlist: Let them meet in person in game 2, in some other dramatic fashion like in the Sun-Ring. Let them have to grab one another’s hands at one point,  trust expressed in the simplest and most dire of ways. 

I’m also still really hopefully waiting for a really good college AU. Or a daemon AU. 

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Aloy/Varl is really nice, and he’s my realistic pick for who I’d like to see Aloy with if they ever give her a canon relationship. I suppose Sylens might have had other relationships at some point in his life, and imagine if they ever brought his personal life (such as it is) into the game it would be that way? But I also don’t think it’s likely we’ll see him portrayed that way at all in canon. A good perk of a rarepair is that I probably don’t have to consider this. 

My happily ever after for them: this , and/or living in Brightmarket with kids. Don’t get me wrong, they’d need about seven years of reconciliation and therapy before that could happen happily. 

(fandom ask meme)